Studies In Parliament; A Series Of Sketches Of Leading Politicians

Paperback | February 1, 2012

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1866. Excerpt: ... fade away. Lord Palmerston was exceedingly tinhappy in the term Demosthenic which he applied to Mr. Cobden's oratorical power. No doubt passages of nervous invective against mischievous principles--seldom indeed against persons--may be produced from many of his speeches both in the Anti-Corn-law League and in Parliament, passages which lashed his antagonists of that day into fury; for, as Mr. Disraeli truly said, Mr. Cobden was "by no means insensible to political excitement." For example, he spoke in the House, of the Corn-law as "a law begotten in violence, baptized in blood, perpetuated at the expense of the tears and groans of the people, and he prayed to God it might not end in violence, which the conduct of Parliament in refusing to discuss it had without doubt a tendency to provoke." But in spite of this sort of intensity, which a strong imagination, vividly realizing the enormity of needless suffering, now and then called forth in Mr. Cobden, the large sensitiveness of his nature was in political life almost entirely used up, not in hostile criticism, but in those intellectual feelers, if we may use the expression, which he put out to discover the surest appeal to the interests of his opponents. The hottest speeches which Mr. Cobden ever made are almost from beginning to end arguments addressed to the prudence and self-interest of his antagonists. He had such profound faith in the wide utilitarianism on which the theory of commerce rests, that he could not threaten, he could not denounce, he could not pass judgment, while the far simpler course, as it seemed to him, of persuading, of imparting to his foes bis own intimate sense of what was really expedient for them, still remained open. Mr. Cobden, in truth, found it difficult to believe earnestly...